The Last Day On Earth (Book 1 of The Galaxy Series)

Chapter 2

I walked into the kitchen area to see the woman who greeted me cooking something in a pot over an open fire. Whatever it was smelled good, better than anything I had eaten in weeks. I opened my mouth to call out to her, but stopped.

Crap, I never asked for her name. Well, better now than never.

"What's your name?" I asked as I walked toward her.

She jumped as soon as I asked the question. Oops. "Oh, dammit, you scared me," she laughed nervously. "My name is Jamie."

"Sorry." I gestured to a chair and she told me to sit down. When I did, I asked, "Did you live here in Bloomington? You know, before the Wasps left?"

"No." Jamie tasted the food before she kept stirring it. "I lived in an Outlier. We mined the limestone to help build and maintain the Towers. If you're heading towards the Evansville port, you'll pass through the town I lived in."

I nodded. "Why did you decide to come here? Why not stay in the Outlier or head to the port?"

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Have you ever lived in an Outlier?"

"I passed through one." They were just giant holes in the ground with equipment inside, barely standing shacks in and around the holes looked to serve as the only shelter from the weather, the four-toed footprints of the Wasps on their patrols still stamped in the dirt, and the prison they had built to torture dissenters in had been broken in to. Also, unlike Indianapolis, which still had a few people who elected to stay behind to care for the elders, it had been completely abandoned.

"They were much worse than they looked. The way they would torment us," her voice was suddenly monotone as if she were spaced out, "and punish us for not meeting their quotas. My friends, my children, they..." She stopped and just stared into the pot.

I waited a few moments before I said, "Jamie?"

She flinched and looked back at me. The look on her face... I actually felt bad for asking. "Sorry, breakfast is done." She grabbed a bowl from the counter nearby. "I hope you like corn chowder. It was all I could make from what I got from the merchants."

"Merchants?" Maybe I could get her to change the subject and feel better.

She nodded as she put some of the chowder into a bowl. "They decided to set up shop further into Bloomington, closer to the Tower. It helps those of us who don't want to leave the planet."

Wait, what? "You don't want to leave? What if the Wasps come back?"

Jamie shrugged and poured another bowl of chowder for herself. "What if what's out there is worse? If they come back, I at least know what's going to happen to me."

I suppose I hadn't thought of that.

We ate in silence until the front door opened and she went to greet the new guest. I wish I had time to explore the Outlier she spoke of, to see if it was as bad as the one I passed through to get to this point. However, with the final ships taking off tomorrow, I hardly had time to chat, let alone explore as I wanted. Oh well. I just wanted to leave this world at this point, find a new purpose and meaning without the Wasps to order and guide the human race.

I finished the chowder as Jamie rejoined me in the kitchen. "Thank you for the food, but I need to get a few hours of sleep." I needed to be gone no later than solar noon so that I could finish walking all the way to my destination.

She finally managed a tiny smile again, although I could tell it was forced. "Okay. Have a good rest. If I'm not out at the desk, then my friend Adrien should be."

I nodded as I walked out of the kitchen toward the stairs. "Thank you again." I made my way upstairs and to the room I was renting for the next few hours.

Getting to look at it without rushing off to do something else actually made me smile. It was more than the fact that it was my own space and my own bed, even if just for a few hours, but the fact that I might get even more space than this on the new planet...! I couldn't fathom it, but I also could not wait.

A life of true freedom, away from the monsters of the past, without any restrictions, and a landscape filled with greenery and life. Things I had only dared to imagine and want in the deepest parts of my soul were coming within my grasp, and I couldn't wait to see what the galaxy had in store for me.

The bed practically swallowed me when I laid on it and, contentedly, I fell asleep with an old alarm clock beside me wound to wake me in only a few hours.